Broken Promises
by Ihsan997
Summary: In a future Menethil Harbor, a person-trafficking ring coincides with an influx of refugees from Outland's rapidly degenerating stability. A mercenary from outside, unknown and unfamiliar with the crumbling port city, hopes to track down the ringleaders. Set in the far future of Azeroth; very AU. 5 chapters
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: welcome to volume two of seven in a little thread I call the Saga of Sharimara. As with the other volumes, you DO NOT need to read my other stories to make sense; all background information will be revealed in the narrative or in the paragraph below. Of course, it would make me happy if you read my stories, but I won't force anybody to; this can be read and understood on its own.**

**This takes place in the year 138 on the Warcraft timeline; for context, the WoD expansion was in the year 31. This is Azeroth about a century into the future, where factions matter little and the game expansions are little blips in the history books. Sharimara is the daughter of one of my main OC couples, Cecilia and Khujand. All other relevant info is contained herein. Enjoy!**

Dusk settled over Menethil Harbor with little fanfare, as it always did. No carnivals lined its decrepit streets, and no hawkers waited in corners for nighttime sales. Busy and economically significant, the port city was also a dangerous place at night; shopkeepers hurried to lower sliding aluminum panels or activate crystalline force fields as they rushed to return to their homes while the sun was still up. There were numerous lamp posts eps long the narrow roads of smudged, slate grey cobblestone, though very few were actually lit. Locals took the time to do it themselves if they had a reason; city guards had other matters on their minds.

Sharimara could see it in the two officers leading her toward the command post of the Menethil city guards near the inland walls of the metropolis. Goldie, a brown haired lass from a typical Wetlands mountain hole, rested her hand on her mace at all times, but gripped the pommel even more tightly whenever groups of more than two people passed them. Her assistant, Dirk, shifted his gaze all around and left no detail unnoticed in contrast to his quiet demeanor. Some combination of human and orc blood, Sharimara surmised. Being mixed herself - half Kaldorei and half Darkspear - she tended to take great interest in such matters.

A distraction. She shook her head as she trailed behind her much shorter companions, trying to focus on the task. In a city such as Menethil where so many people carried weapons, she was able to wear her armor without raising any eyebrows. All the better; she'd been sent on missions before where she had to blend in and had repeated to herself, during more difficult situations: 'if only I could walk around in my armor all day.' Menethil Harbor was one of those cities: violent, uncaring and dangerous. Nobody gave a damn when she was in plate and that was how she liked it.

Dirk stepped forward first when they reached the command post; it was a tall, ugly building of grey bricks and mortar that was entirely undefended from the outside. Sharimara knew the local government must have been bleeding for help when they'd even bothered contacting her; factions rarely turned to mercenaries unless they were desperate from one angle or another. The lack of any lookouts around the control center for the city guard confirmed those suspicions.

Goldie turned around to look up at her. The woman was weathered and about a century old, like Sharimara herself, but was much more pleasant despite the crime ridden hellhole she woke up to every single day. Just like her name, Goldie was like a shining ray of hope in a bonfire shitstorm.

"Chief Stevenson is the head of the city guard," the dwarf woman said in nearly unaccented Common. "He wanted to fill you in on the details himself. You've heard it all before, but this is protocol."

While Dirk held the door open for both of them, Sharimara eyed the minor camp of homeless peasants living in wooden crates the next alleyway over; they were terrible actors; probably paid to sleep next to the city guard headquarters and eavesdrop in return for the stale bread they were eating.

"Understood," Sharimara replied while ducking underneath the doorway and stepping inside. She felt a fleeting moment of self-consciousness for having stood out so obviously, her stature mismatched to the city's human-sized interiors...not that it mattered in Menethil Harbor; the city was full of so many weirdos that nobody seemed to notice her.

Inside the city guard command, the same drab, dreary air hung all around. Wallpaper was peeling and awareness posters from over fifteen years ago hung from pieces of chewing gum on the wall. When Sharimara's long, batlike ears swiveled, she could hear rodents crawling behind the walls. Yeah...they were desperate for help.

Down another dilapidated hallway, Goldie led the group toward a flimsy wooden door that always hung open due to what was likely a manufacturing default. Attempts to close it all the way failed entirely, and Goldie eventually just turned to her assistant when she couldn't close the door to the main office.

"Dirk, just stand watch in case anybody tries to listen."

"Standing and watching, boss," the part human, part orc man replied in a surprisingly deep baritone voice.

Inside, there was a human sitting and one leaning against the wall, both of them looking tired and overworked yet rather self assured, as elite guards often did. The one seated, an older gentleman with very dark skin and wearing plainclothes, was obviously the one in charge.

"Chief Stevenson," Goldie addressed him with a nod. "This is the warden we called in from the Blasted Lands."

There were no pauses, no breaks in the conversation for the chief to inspect Sharimara or eye her pretentiously. As confident as Stevenson looked, he also came off as a consummate professional and didn't grandstand or play games. "A night early? Much appreciated, Warden...Hearthglen, right?"

"That's correct," Sharimara replied from her vantage point near the office door. As large as she was, moving around inside human sized buildings could get difficult - especially in offices so cluttered with filing cabinets and boxes of old reports.

"Chief Stevenson here. You've met Goldie and Dirk. This is Grimes, one of our footmen in the Greyscale neighborhood." Stevenson pointed to the fully armored swordsman leaning against the wall, and the footman actually did seem a bit pretentious as he nodded without looking up. "Our woman on the inside is Shoita; and from the moment I've told you that, we're now speaking off the record."

"Of course," Sharimara replied. "It seems you're ready to get down to business."

Unassuming approval shone in the chief's tired eyes, though his thick eyebrows still bore a hard determination in them that spoke of many years spent trying to clean up his city. "That's the case. I can try to give you the short version of what's going down."

"Please."

"You know about the crisis in Outland?"

"Correct, sir. Population explosion hit that planet over the past three decades, and instability in the fabric of its core has increased the frequency of earthquakes."

Finally relaxing in his chair, Stevenson pointed toward the ceiling with a pencil. "Precisely. Every since those two duplicates of the Dark Portal were opened up north and down south, the entire eastern hemisphere has been getting flooded by the refugees. People are complaining, governments are dodging, charities are collapsing."

"And opportunists are exploiting, yes?" Sharimara asked rhetorically.

"That's it. We know this much: our city is only a minor transshipment point, but we don't want that stuff here. Somehow a local mafia - they don't use a title to avoid detection - is scooping them up in other regions and collecting them here. From our port, they're shipped out to various slavers and sweatshops owned by almost every cartel that's still operative. And we know they're hiding the victims somewhere in Greyscale while they decide where each group will be sent."

Without even bothering to face Sharimara and Goldie - he was giving them his shoulder - Grimes finally chimed in. "Word on the street is that they employ a mage to cast a soundproof shell on their hideout - nobody can hear the refugees scream. But we know roughly where it is; our witness was being shipped on a wagon to the hideout and jumped into a canal. She barely made it but we found her clinging to a storm drain for dear life during a downpour last week, and she roughly knows where they had stopped to transfer her."

"Nobody mentioned a witness," Sharimara said to Stevenson, ignoring Grimes if he wanted to be that way.

Whether it was at the fact that he now had a piece of information he could tell her before anyone else did, or his joy at the resource they'd dragged out of a storm drain, Stevenson's weary eyes lighted up. "Top secret - nobody is supposed to put it into writing. That's part of why we needed you here; this wasn't just so I could ramble about what you already know."

"Sorry for being indirect, lass," Goldie said while punching Sharimara in the arm lightly.

Were it anybody else, they would have been shocked at how quickly they'd lost that hand. Sharimara knew the dwarf meant it as a form of cautious but real comeraderie, however, and let it slight. "No need; I'm sure this witness won't make it more than a few steps down the hall if word gets out that she's alive."

Grimes snorted. "How do you know it's a she?" he asked derisively.

Sharimara's ears twitched, and she wondered how many times Goldie had to avoid decking the guy. Unfortunately, her tongue wasn't as sharp as her fighting skills; unable to teach him a lessons without getting herself in jail instead of the people smugglers, she just ignored him. "I take it I'm here to meet the witness?" she asked, doing her best not to display any outward reaction.

"Exactly. Hearing it directly from her will be the best way to get up to speed on the situation; she's proven surprisingly coherent and collected considering all the poor girl's been through," Stevenson explained after staring Grimes down for a few seconds. "Goldie can show you to her; I'm even minimizing my own trips to that part of the building for the time being. Goldie?"

"On it, chief," the dwarf replied, already rapping her knuckles on the door for Dirk to move. "Lemme show you to her," Goldie then told Sharimara while leading her out the door. Stevenson and Grimes remained absolutely silent, most likely waiting for them to move out of earshot before discussing something in private.

Outside, neither Goldie nor Dirk spoke. There were no windows in that wing of the city guard garrison, but the two of them behaved as if they were being watched. Ever watchful herself, Sharimara gladly accepting the silence and trailed behind as they wound their way down a few corridors. Old paper waste and a bit of dust littered the floor, and there were no obvious signs of possible informants lurking around. Magic couldn't be counted out: like three of her five siblings, Sharimara had been blessed at Teldrassil with an immunity to most forms of offensive magic. It was a double edged sword: she also had a poor sense for detecting magic other than her own, and wouldn't know if any more hired mages had cast auras to spy on the building.

At least there weren't any rogues, she thought to herself; she would have noticed them by then. When they reached an iron door guarded by two golems, she shuddered, remembering a particularly unpleasant experience with the automatons. Regardless, she understood the rationale: mechanical guards couldn't be bribed or tortured into telling secrets. The two machines lied still as Dirk unlocked the door, this time following the two women inside after he ushered them in.

The young draenei woman sitting on a chair in the middle of the modest cell didn't stand out due to her sheepishness. What caught Sharimara's eye was how well the holding cell had been decorated to resemble a small apartment. The wallpaper was a bit newer and the cement floor was mostly covered with throw rugs. A bookshelf and sewing machine lied in the corner opposite the latrine, adding to the sense of coziness of a solitary confinement room that shouldn't have felt so comfortable. For an interplanetary natural disaster refugee who almost died escaping a bunch of slavers, it must have felt like a little slice of heaven.

Once the malnourished looking draenei in donated clothes locked eyes with Sharimara, her own lit up. The warden knew her affect on people; only the most weathered of warriors like Stevenson or other mercenaries failed to react. A rather distinct figure, Sharimara was imposing even without her sharp features and glowing eyes; the plate armor she was allowed to wear inside Menethil Harbor city limits only added to that imposition. Bail jumpers and outlaws tended to freeze up just as much as hostages and prisoners tended to light up. And at that moment, the draenei was bright like the light she worshipped.

Dirk remained by the air duct and stood with his ear against it, as if expecting a potential rogue to fail and create some noise at any minute. Goldie stepped forward and lent her hand to help the frail woman stand up, casting aside much of the stern and taciturn demeanor she had been projecting outside. "Naira, this is Warden Hearthglen. Sometimes in order to uphold the law, we need someone who doesn't mind...acting outside of it, for a period," the dwarf explained to the slightly overwhelmed escapee.

Naira seemed comfortable, but her level of confidence wasn't anywhere near that of the dwarf's. She looked Sharimara up and down, standing in awe. "I thank you for coming to help us." Her diction was excellent but the cadence of her speech was slow, like a non native speaker of Common who had learned from other educated non native speakers.

"Thank me when I can help the ones who haven't escaped yet," she replied. "Do you want to sit down? I need to ask you some questions."

"Oh, oh, okay." Even when nervous, Naira didn't stutter, and the woman was able to control her speaking voice well. The two of them sat down, and Goldie left them to chat with Dirk about what sounded to be faked, everyday topics as they eavesdropped. Naira smoothed her hair back self consciously and let out an uneasy laugh. "What do you need me to say?"

Slowing her speech to help the woman relax, Sharimara removed her helmet to reveal her face. Naira's shoulders loosened up noticeably. "Can you start with who brought you here in the first place?" she asked quietly.

Smiling politely, Naira tried to conceal the trauma in her eyes. "Grimwald. That's all he goes by. A dwarf, he's bald and has black hair." And then she just stopped, and looked at Sharimara as if that was the entire story.

"Alright...Naira, can you tell me anything else? How did he catch you?"

"Well...he didn't catch me. He didn't catch most of us." Trying to force a smile, Naira looked rather embarrassed. "He tricked me, and I believed him, just like most of the others."

"How?"

Naira cleared her throat and fidgeted. "Well, all of us on Outland heard about the jobs and housing on Azeroth. So when we opened another Dark Portal south of here, Grimwald was waiting at a tent. Most of the survivors from my village told each other about him, because he said he wanted to start a factory to enchant crystals - most people on your planet still have to use candles for light. He told us he respected our skills, and..." For a moment, Naira shut her eyes tight and blushed a darker shade of blue. Recognizing the sign of someone who felt foolish, Sharimara reached out and held the woman's hand reassuringly. Naira looked up and didn't try to conceal the trauma as hard anymore. "We believed him. So we gave him our identification papers, and when he told us the city discriminated against us we hid in a wagon beneath some furniture like he asked. When they grabbed my cousin and dragged him across the ground to send him to a sweatshop on the way to the factory, I knew we'd made a mistake. That's when...that's when...I escaped. I escaped...oh, I left them all..."

Naira leaned forward, and Sharimara didn't need any more indication than that before she leaned in as well and gave the woman a hug. Though Naira didn't cry, she appeared legitimately guilty over her own escape. "You didn't do anything wrong, Naira; your family would want you to escape even without them. And because you escaped, we can help them all. I just need to know where they planned on taking you."

After calming down a bit, Naira let go but continued to stare at her own hooves. "I'm not entirely sure where they wanted to take me, but I know where they took my cousin, and I know that the two places are very close. The place where they dropped him off to work...it has no sign, but I heard the sound of a hypersonic lathe inside."

Sharimara hummed in affirmation. "Those are used to produce Venom-Berserk. Highly illegal stuff; I don't imagine they'd have a sign." Tilting Naira's chin up with her finger, Sharimara gave the distraught woman a serious but not stern look. "No matter what, we will set your family free, and all the people who were caught. But do you have any other information about where this place is?"

Naira blushed again after considering the question. "Not really...it's in a neighborhood called Greyscale. I only saw it for the few seconds between when I jumped out from under the furniture in the wagon and when the current in the canal overpowered me. Oh...and I saw a building with a green lantern outside. Not the one where the dragged me cousin to, but maybe across the alley and a few doors down."

Nodding a final time, Sharimara released the woman from her grip. "Thank you for telling me, Naira. But now that I know, there isn't much time."

"I understand."

Sharimara stood up and waved to Goldie, and the two guards met her at the door. "I'm gonna stay here for a moment, lass," the dwarf whispered. "Poor girl gets lonely in here. Dirk, show her the city map?"

"Showing the mapping, boss," he replied.

Wasting no time, Sharimara followed the broad shouldered man out of the cell and toward the front office of the garrison again. It was going to be a long night...because if she had her way, she wasn't going to let the victims spend another one in captivity.


	2. Chapter 2

After having studied the city map with and received all the details about their inside woman from Dirk, Sharimara spent a bit of time checking with the other footmen at the garrison about the neighborhood known as Greyscale. She knew a rough description of an area as well as a sound; she'd comb the whole area if she had to, but she would much prefer if she didn't have to. Which meant, of course, that she found herself pursuing the only footman she knew was assigned to the neighborhood as he walked outside the garrison for a smoke break.

"Grimes, I need to talk to you," she said while catching up to the man just outside the front entrance of the high, unpleasant brick building.

He was standing in the courtyard, staring out through the rusty iron bars that formed the fence, and had been halfway toward two other off duty guards when he turned around to see her. Less condescending than when they'd been around his peers, he nodded a bit more politely before waving off the other guards in a signal that he wouldn't be meeting up with them as they smoked and kicked an empty can against the side of the building.

His armor was dented and worn, a sign of the squeezed budget of the Alliance government. Motioning for her to follow him with a wave of his finger, he walked to the opposite end of the courtyard from his colleagues and the very obviously eavesdropping hobos in the opposite alleyway.

"Questions about my neighborhood?" he asked knowingly, the bravado and dismissiveness gone from his voice.

"Affirmative. I have a rough description of the...location in question. And apparently, there's someone who was heard operating a hypersonic lathe in there."

At that, the human's eyes grew as wide as saucers. He pursed his lips and turned away from each other, nodding to himself as he calmed down. "That's...literally the first time I've heard that. You know a little bit about my own territory that I don't."

"It was near a building with a green lantern out front."

Resolutely shy after having been shown up on his own turf, Grimes almost looked humble for a moment. "Well...there's more than one place like that. Establishments that offer fel tainted drinks light those, but they tend to shift their locations to keep us chasing after them. But..." His voice trailed off only for a few seconds as he tilted his head up and looked toward the stars. "...there can't be that many. More than one, less than five; we'd hear about it if there's more. Your best bet, if you want to scour them all, is some chump named Mervin."

"He's some sort of a junkie, I take it?"

Grimes snorted in disapproval. "No, he's a poser who hangs around them. Talks too much, but he's only been in town half a year; he'll be dead in another half but last I checked, he's still hanging around a place about twenty minutes down the road called the Winking Makrura." Grimes paused for a moment at Sharimara's grimace. "Don't ask me about the name."

"Don't worry, I didn't plan on it," she grumbled, memories of the cheap yet inexplicably popular new drink made by the lobster people scraping against her olfactory nerves.

"You can't miss Mervin. He's one of my people, early twenties, light brow hair, muscle shirt but no muscles. And always talking a little too loudly for a grown man."

"I know the type."

"Then you'll know him. I'd hurry if I were you; if he can point you to the locations, you'll have a lot of snooping ahead of you. And if he can't, then you'll need to find a other way fast."

"Noted. And thanks," Sharimara said while starting on her way out of the garrison courtyard. Subtle as always, she didn't let him know she was looking back but watched him glance to the eavesdropping homeless people and back to her again out of the corner of her eye.

"Don't mention it," he mumbled back.

Shadowmelding as her mother had taught her nearly a century before, Sharimara moved unseen as she sought the Winking Makrura down the road. It was much further away than Grimes had claimed, but eventually the relatively empty streets became a little more crowded by drinks, street performers and nighttime dealers and she could see the lights of a tavern far ahead. An uneventful walk took her the rest of the way there, and she jumped into an alleyway to break her stealth without causing a stir.

The crowd had spilled out of the establishment, and numerous off duty dock workers and simple insomniacs were mingling outside. Running a quick scan of the multiracial crowd, Sharimara found nobody fitting the description of this Mervin and ventured a walk inside.

The establishment was as forgettable as every other seedy tavern she'd been in: crowded beyond capacity, loud beyond belief and full of the most depressed and depressing looking citizens of the locale. None of the empty chairs at the bar were large enough to support anyone larger than an orc, and so Sharimara found herself leaning against the countertop of the bar at the edge closest to the door. The bartender, one of the makrura themselves, crawled toward her and peered at. The unfamiliar customer with eyes hanging on the ends of stalks.

"Your weakest brew, please," she shouted over the crowd while leaning forward.

The lobsterman appeared to nod and crawled backwards, handling a glass in its pincers with excellent precision. Once she had a drink in her hand, she began to carefully inspect the other patrons. A good deal of them were armed just like her, and those who weren't didn't appear like a particularly wholesome crowd, either. She didn't have to look long, however, before her attention was caught by a man at the other end of the bar who was moving his hands just a little too much.

Wearing a black sleeveless shirt that had deodorant stains just beneath his armpits, the brown haired human was attempting to butt in on an existing conversation between two drunk gnomes. They weren't entirely brushing him off, but neither turned to face him even when acknowledging his comments. It would have been pitiful had he remained undaunted and annoyingly insisted on waving his hands around to catch their attention. The tribal tattoo in his forearm, despite the fact that he probably didn't belong to any sort of tribe, only added further confirmation that she'd found her man after less than five minutes inside the tavern.

However, the place was so busy that it took her another five to get the makrura bartender's attention. Business seemed to be booming and the clawed man worked his way from one end to another slowly as most patrons - for reasons that Sharimara would never understand - insisted on refills of the noxious drink the lobster people must have brewed from foamy sea scum.

By the time the bartender reached her, she was already irritated.

"Do you see that guy down there?" she asked urgently while pointing toward Mervin. The bartender glanced before waggling his antennae in affirmation. "Well, send him a shot of the best stuff you have."

Waggling again, the bartender brought down a shot glass from the cabinets above and carefully mixed a drink with a dexterity that even a being with six fingers wouldn't have displayed. Already set upon by impatient patrons, the lobsterman slid the shot glass over to Mervin and sufficed by simply pointing one of its pincers toward Sharimara before it crawled to the next lonely drunkard.

Doing a double take, Mervin quickly forgot about the two gnomes who had already forgotten about him. Slack jawed and dumbstruck, he stared at Sharimara awkwardly for a few moments while she nursed her nasty drink. It was almost as if he thought it was a mistake. Losing her patience, she pushed the situation slightly over the top and shot him a subtle wink before taking another sip, and he grinned like an idiot at what he thought was his luck that evening. Trying to down the shot but nearly choking in the process, he took the bait hook, line and sinker as she slid away from the bar and walked outside, casting a sultry look over her shoulder as the man who couldn't even hold the attention of two drunk gnomes thought an eight foot tall half elf, half troll wanted him and only him for a romantic tryst in a back alley.

Unfortunately, Mervin proved as clumsy as he was dense, and Sharimara ended up waiting for longer than her already tried patience would allow as she rounded the corner at the edge of the street. If she hung too close to the mingling crowd outside the front door, the two of them might be seen; and even if she was new in town, she didn't want any potential informants to put two and two together regarding her trip to the city guard garrison and her tryst with a stool pigeon. If she walked too far ahead, however, than Mervin was liable to get lost, and she'd have to fish him out of the crowd in public. Letting her long, indigo ponytail hang out into the street as she concealed the rest of herself just inside the edge of an empty alley, she waited until he stumbled out the front door and saw her.

Walking with more swag than a goblin pimp with a prosthetic leg, Mervin grinned like a fool and even tried to wink back at her a few times as he caught up. Every bit of her willpower was sapped just to avoid laughing at him, and she was rather proud of herself that she managed to swing her hips a little bit as she led him away from prying eyes.

Pants that were way too tight for a man with a package so small creaked as he boxed her in at the end of a brick wall; though the ultravision she'd inherited from her mother let her see the unrestrained glee in his eyes, she ventured a guess that he could barely even see her anymore. His skinny neck flexed as he tried to straighten up and see her, though she was over two feet taller than him and he wasn't able to press up against her just yet.

"So...you...um...hi?" Mervin asked sheepishly as he seemed to realize that he had no idea what to do or say. The poor sap had probably never made it that far before.

Bracing both of her hands against the brick wall behind him, Sharimara edged up against him until he couldn't back away any further. The green glow of her eyes shone on him as he gasped, his glee completely unhidden like a child with no sense of subtlety. "Hello, stranger," she breathed down onto the top of his scalp. She would have breathed onto his neck or ear, but he was simply too short. "Are you feeling lucky tonight?"

Her line was so bad that she'd have to remember to mentally kick herself for it later, but then again, she never was one for eloquence or public speaking. All the same, it worked, and Mervin both gasped and snickered at the same time in the unsexiest sound she could have imagined. He smelled like a combination of fragrant, expensive cologne as well as appalling body odor, as if he was trying too hard and still failing due to having no idea what he was doing.

"Luck be a lady tonight," he quoted from a popular song his people often sang at casinos and higher class taverns that he probably couldn't afford to visit anyway.

"Good...very good," she purred while arching her back. Her chest was about level with his eyes, and he made no attempt to hide what he was staring at. "But if you want to win this jackpot...then you need to help me rev my engine first."

"Baby, I'll grease your gears any way you like," her replied, and she bit her tongue so hard to avoid laughing in his face that she almost hurt herself.

"Okay...wow," she chortled, working very hard to control her tone of voice. "Um, listen. This engine runs in a very special fuel-"

"You mean like my MAN fuel?"

In a matter of seconds, she went from wanting to laugh in his face to bitch slap it as she tried to come to terms with the fact that there was a man, somewhere in the world, who actually thought that was even remotely alluring. "Yeah, okay, like that. But first, I need to know...where can we blow this joint and grab some Venom-Berserk." His eyes lit up momentarily, though his gaze didn't lift from the angle of her chestpiece where he was ogling her. "I hear there's this cozy little place in Greyscale with their own hypersonic lathe; all the stuff is fresh, but nobody will show me where it is," she pouted, letting her voice drop sadly at the end.

Chest puffing up chivalrously, Mervin seemed to think he was saving a damsel in distress. "Baby, I know that place! They just shifted the party there four days ago. I mean...I didn't actually go yet, but...uh...I'd walk five hundred miles to get you what you need!"

Pressing into him again, Sharimara had to squat in order to easily press her nose and lips to the side of his head, right above his ear. He shuddered in delight as she breathed him in, and she shuddered in disgust as she received a noseful of dandruff and grease. "I want to know, fuel man," she purred into his ear, dropping a line every bit as cheesy as the ones he was using. "I just get so excited hearing about it. Greyscale is such a dangerous place."

Quivering and unable to contain himself, Mervin looked as if he was about to lose it right there and ruin the inside of his pants. "I'll take you down! To funky town!"

"Where is it, baby?" she whispered while pressing herself as close to him as she could without vomiting. "Tell meeeeee..."

"It's on the corner of 5th and Main!"

And then she headbutted him.

To say she felt no guilt at all would have been a lie. As delusional as Mervin was, the way the moon blessed plate armor of her helmet thudded against his forehead did make her wince. Even the very desperate were still pitiful, and as his body crumpled to the ground in a heap, she did feel a bit of pity. Out like a rock, he actually had a smile plastered in his lips despite the fact that he'd feel like he'd been run over by a kodo when he woke up. Not wanting to be too cruel, she reached down and unzipped his pants so that when he regained consciousness in, oh, about a day and a half, he'd at least assume that he truly had gotten lucky. It didn't hurt her if she let him think that, and it erased the small amount of guilt that had previously been pricking at her soft side.

"5th and Main," she repeated to herself as she shadowmelded lest anybody pass by and notice the glow of her eyes. "5th and Main." Shutting her eyes now that she was alone, she went back to the city map that Dirk had shown her and imagined the streets of Greyscale that she'd been examining less than half an hour before.

Though Sharimara didn't have a photographic memory, at exactly ninety nine years old she'd learned how to memorize important details in short amounts of time. The uneven grid of Menethil Harbor's worst neighborhood reappeared in her memory, and she tried to remember the nonsensical rhyme she'd invented in her head to keep track of all the street names. After a good few minutes spent just standing over Mervin's snoring form with her eyes closed, the answer came to her.

"Damn...eighteen streets east, six streets north," she murmured to herself. Her eyes opened, the non fel green light illuminating the area immediately around her.

Looking up, she measured the buildings; no structure in Menethil Harbor was higher than four stories and due to her height, the fire escape was low enough for her to reach up and grab. Still...genes from both sides of her family had blessed her with agility, and it was much more fun to jump.

Leaping onto the fire escape level with the second floor of the building block, she braced all four hundred pounds of her weight without creating a sound. It was a good rush; her last few jobs had been typical breakups of unchartered guilds and simple tracking quests for local authorities who lacked the womanpower to chase after every highway robber. And as she leapt up to the roof of the first building, she felt her adrenaline rush for the first time in quite a few weeks.

One after the other, Sharimara leapt from rooftop to rooftop, sprinting across the city as she counted the number of streets she crossed. The stars above shone down on her transparent form, almost letting her feel as if she could absorb that blessed moonlight again after so many years spent alone and on the move. Alone and with her thoughts, she finally felt as if she had some semblance of control while blazing a trail a good quarter of the distance across the port city.

Her plate boots barely made any noise at all, leaving her to her thoughts. It had been a good fifteen years since she'd rekindled relations with her siblings and their families again. Memories of the reunion that was tearful for them and awkward for her finally flowed without being shoved back down now that she was sure nobody would interrupt her as she leapt the entire distance across streets wide enough for two hose drawn wagons to pass each other. She'd always been the one to stay at home when their parents were alive, ever the diligent daughter. Mom died first, being a night elf of the generation born long before the War of the Ancients; simple old age caught up with her, leaving dad to pass away two years later. Having spent so much time caring for them, she suffered the most when dad finally passed; her primary task and activity had been taken away from her.

As she leapt across the last street she needed to cross, she could amout remember the day, over half a century before, when she leapt onto the first ship out of Ratchet. She'd begun her training as a warden many decades before then; her sisters and brothers had been properly warned. For all of them knew, being half elf, that a warden never worked except as a jailer, an assassin or a bounty huntress. And there had been no job openings at the Steamwheedle jail beneath Ratchet.

No time for that...long, batlike ears twitched at the rhythmic sound of a foul, arcane powered hypersonic lathe. Far away and inaudible to all but the most sensitive ears, the noise caused by production of one of the hottest new narcotics on the black market pulled her closer. Crouching down on all fours, she peered over the edge of the last building, her mental map having served her well.

Directly across from her was a green lantern. Rather than the healthy, natural green of the natural magic shining in her eyes, this was a corrupt, fel green, much like what appeared in the eyes of warlocks, blood elves of all professions and the more depraved of magi.

And right next to it was a pair of non magical, non glowing eyes staring directly at her. They focused only for a moment before the person in rags turned tail and ran. In spite of her shadowmeld, she'd been spotted.


	3. Chapter 3

Shadowmelding was an odd ability. Naturally wielded by all night elves, it allowed them to become transparent during the night time - one of the reasons for their race's name, in addition to the fact that they were nocturnal. Sharimara was only half night elf; her father had been a jungle troll. Regardless, she could blend into the shadows all the same, albeit only after a great deal of training that a full blooded night elf wouldn't have required. It was a great way to travel undetected, and fooled all but the most seasoned of adventurers.

And children.

That was the funny thing about it: children noticed things that adults simply didn't pay attention to. And as she'd learned from her mother, a child could almost always recognize the things that went bump in the night - even a race of people more likely to protect them than to harm them. Thus, it was no surprise to Sharimara when she leapt down into the alleyway and found that the fleeing spotter she'd snatched up in her arms was none other than a human child of no more than ten years.

The little boy flailed his arms as she clamped her hand over his mouth. "Calm down; I'm your friend," she whispered to him as he struggled in vain against her grip. She'd dragged him deeper into the alleyway in which he'd fled once she'd caught him, negating any chance that the underage informant could actually conform anybody.

Eventually, he stopped fighting though his little heart continued to throb in his chest. It was as sad a sight as was Naira; the boy's shoes had holes in them and unlike Mervin, he had an excuse for the unwashed state of his hair. Although there was a measure of fear in his eyes as he looked up at her, it was much less than one might expect. Either he could sense that she wasn't going to hurt him, or he'd simply been hurt enough that he was an impressively tough ten year old.

When she peeled her armored fingers off of his mouth, he didn't scream. "They made me do it," the boy pleaded. He was obviously an orphan, for a child raised in a proper home would have begged much more urgently than that.

Doing her best to feel what it would be like in his shoes, Sharimara tried to reassure him. "I believe you; and I won't force you to do anything." Reaching to her belt, she pulled off a coinpurse full of more gold than the boy could possibly imagine. He'd likely spend it all far too soon, but unless she was ready to quit her line of work and adopt him - which was not ever going to happen - then there was very little else she could do for him. "This is for you no matter what you do now. But if you want to help me, then it's fair because I help you. Deal?"

Confirming her suspicions about him, the ten year old readily reached out and took the bag of coins, responding maturely to the offer of a bargain. "Deal."

"Who made you spy on me?" she asked softly while setting him back down on his feet and adjusting his shirt for him like a mother would do.

Glancing over his shoulder toward the street slyly like a miniature mafioso, the boy leaned in close to tell her. "Grimwald pays us to watch the streets for him. Nobody suspects urchins," he whispered. "He doesn't like guards or even new people who are just passing through."

"And where is Grimwald, sweetie?"

Glancing around again, the boy took a step closer toward her instead of just leaning this time. "Inside the lacquerware factory. I don't know what lacquerware is, because they don't make anything there anyway."

"Do they keep people in there?"

"Well...I see more people go in than go out," the boy replied after thinking about it for a moment. "But I don't know what they do. The factory is two streets north of here. There's no sign out front and there are empty factories on either side."

Ruffling her hand in his hair, she smiled and felt a twinge of sadness at his situation that she quickly stuffed down into her core. There was no time for that now. "Thank you, sweetheart. Take this and disappear; act like nothing happened."

"You don't have to tell me twice, sister!" the ten year old boy beamed like a little man. He ran straight toward the wall and through a crawl space leading to the other side; after the crumlping of some old newspapers, he was gone, running in the opposite direction of the drug lab.

Retaining her shadowmeld, Sharimara ventured out into the street. It wasn't a miracle that nobody had seen her pounce on the child; the thugs hired to protect such operations rarely roamed outside, instead hiring hobos and, much more often than just this situation, orphans to scout for them. The rhythm of the hypersonic lathe had slowed down greatly and only rang out in intermittent bursts, as if the operator wasn't a professional. A tall residential building with boards over the windows on all three stories marked the location; the drug party marked by a green lantern was far enough down for nobody to be snooping around.

There were no alleys on either side; the next buildings were all fused to it in a row. Her senses told her immediately that the basement was empty and still, and a stoop led up to the front door, signaling that the first floor was raised. Relevant. The voices that her sensitive ears could hear were all whispering to each other as well. Also relevant. From the sidewalk, she could hear that a group of the people inside were close...sitting down. She couldn't describe the means to the uninitiated, but the way the voices reverberated off of the wooden walls told her that they were sitting at a table, five of them, and two were goblins. Two humans. One dwarf. More voices toward the back of the building.

A quick jump allowed her to latch on to the windowsill of a boarded second story window; her iron grip held her on as she clung to the wall, and she heard no sounds on the second and third floors; regardless, she couldn't enter from there. Too much noise. Dropping back down to the street, she inspected the immediate area and found no booby traps, but did notice a rusty iron spike lying in a garbage heap. She didn't know enough of metallurgy to venture a guess as to what it was once used for, but when she looked to the peephole on the front door, she steeled her nerve.

Even if these people weren't tied directly to Grimwald's operation, they were still drug dealers; nobody used a hypersonic lathe for anything other than brewing the nastiest, most addictive slop.

"Occupational hazard," she told herself as she walked up to the stoop and placed the iron spike directly over the peephole. Retaining her shadowmeld, she rapped her knuckles on the door and listened to the gasps and hushed conversations inside.

"Nobody knows we're here except the boss," said the voice of a male orc from the back of the building just a little too loudly. "Cops wouldn't even try from the front door. Just go check, one of you."

After a bit of grumbling, the footsteps of a human - most likely a female - bounced on the wooden floorboards on the way toward the front door. This would be loud; there was no avoiding it. Sharimara was accustomed to neutralizing targets quicky, but multiple people scattered across both ends of the house were bound to make noise. All she could do was hope that the people at the drug party down the other end of the street were simply too high to notice anything awry.

Her heart rate increased as she heart the human breathing on the other side of the door. Small palms pressed on the other side of the wood as the woman ostensibly furrowed her brow while peering through the peephole. "I don't see a thing..."

One hard slap of her free hand to the blunt back end of the iron spike sent it through the peephole and into something soft, then against something hard. Not a single scream rang out and Sharimara knew she'd pierced the woman's skull by the sound of the spike being dragged downward against the bottom rim of the peephole. Her body didn't thump in the floor, and must have been hanging by the spike inside of her skull. The sound of her skull being stabbed was enough to arouse a bit of suspicion, but Sharimara had already moved out of the way of the door.

"Well, what's the holdup?" the voice of a goblin male asked from the end of the hallway. When he fell silent, Sharimara knew that he'd seen the body of his partner in crime hanging from the peephole. "What the..." The man stopped himself mid sentence, and creeping footsteps creaked away to earn the back of the building again while those in the front room rose from their chairs slowly. Leaping to the windowsill on the second story of the building again, Sharimara waited for it.

"Raid!" a female goblin screamed just at the same moment that musket balls riddled the door.

The shots were partially muffled by the walls of the crackhouse, and the body of the woman impaled on the other side of the door absorbed many of the shots fired. Heavier footsteps rang out as seemingly everyone in the house rushed toward the front door, and Sharimara saw a few arrows poke through the boarded up windows below while the gun wielders reloaded their slow firing weapons.

"Stop! Stop!" cried the male orc in the back of the building. A few seconds of silence hung over the house as Sharimara continued waiting. "I don't hear anything."

The man's footsteps rang out as he joined his comrades at the front of the house, though not all of them were convinced. "If they took only two steps back from the door, we wouldn't hear anything. Doesn't mean they're dead yet."

"Then who's going to go check?" asked the female goblin. More silence punctuated her sentence. "Oh, don't look at me like that!"

This was getting her nowhere. Patience worn thin again, Sharimara focused the natural energy she'd been taught to control during her training as a warden, and cast her blink spell. In an instant, she'd teleported directly behind the group and only had half a second to take in her surroundings before they noticed the distortion in the air created by her magic.

A hallway. A closed door behind her. Five people crouched in front of her, facing toward the dead, bleeding body pinned against the door. She didn't even have enough time to pick out which people were orcs and which were humans before she pulled out her double bladed fel glaive and decapitated both riflemen.

"Ghost!" the goblin archer screamed just before the second swing of Sharimara's glaive decapitated her as well. Only when three of the group of drug Brewers had been beheaded were the remaining two even able to turn around and see her.

The male orc started to swing what appeared to be a short sword at her; another female human, toward the back of the group, didn't have enough space to swing whatever weapon was in her hand and dropped it while reaching for a pistol. There was no time to think; only to react.

Sharimara's reaction was to thrust her glaive into the human's shoulder, severing the woman's pistol arm and sending her into a screaming heap on the ground, filling the unlit hallway with her blood. The orc didn't have enough space in the hallway for a proper swing due to the pile of bodies in the way, and Sharimara was able to parry the blow with her elbow and the blade slid off her shoulder pauldron at a poor angle. Before she could even realize what she'd done, she swung her glaive upward in reaction and cut into his chest cavity, botching what should have been an assault that left at least one of her opponents healthy enough to talk.

"Damnit!" she cursed at herself as the man fell to the top of the pile of corpses, gurgling too much blood to be interrogated.

In less than ten seconds, she'd butchered the five remaining drug dealers in the building, leaving her only a screaming, one armed human who would most assuredly bleed out in a minute or so. Her already pale face had already turned a lighter shade of beige. Determined to give interrogation at least one attempt, Sharimara strapped her glaive back to her baldric and lifted the human by the hair.

"A draenei refugee was dragged here! Where is he!" she barked while slamming the one armed woman against the wall.

"Factory! The factory! He's in the factory! HEAL ME!" the woman screamed, though with little force in her voice as her life force gushed out of her gaping wound.

"Heal yourself," Sharimara grumbled while tossing the much shorter person aside like a wet rag.

Refusing to believe the woman at first, Sharimara shadowmelded and searched the back end of the house. The kitchen had been turned into a drug lab, and numerous extra sinks had been moved in to brew their liquid death en masse. The hypersonic lathe had cooled off, though the arcane runes that powered the accursed machine were still lightly glowing in a sign that it had been in use up until a few minutes before.

Breathing. Avian breathing. No avian species native to Azeroth were sentient; the nose that reached Sharimara's ears toward the back of the kitchen was off an alien race. And on Outland, the arakkoa were the only avian species that were sentient and intelligent enough to hide quietly when nervous.

Breaking her shadowmeld, she took a defensive stance that would appear unassuming to a civilian. "I'm not one of these people," she announced to the empty kitchen. "I'm a warden hired by the city guard to locate the refugees from Outland; you will not be harmed."

A slight change in the rhythm of the breathing caught her attention, and she looked at a pantry at the far end of the kitchen. More likely due to desperation than actual trust in her words, the arakkoa opened the door of the pantry just a crack and peered through at her. "I'm not a drug dealer," came the unnaturally echoing voice of one of Outland's bird people.

"I know you're not; you're a victim, and I've been sent to save your people. Please, come out." When the pantry door swung open, one of the hunched over forms of the flightless arakkoa met her eyes. The man wore tattered robes and wore an uncomfortable looking collar around his neck bearing arcane runes. Sharimara knelt down to look less imposing. "It's alright; the drug dealers are dead, and I'm not going to hurt you. Come on."

Wringing his hands, the nervous birdman crept over toward her, his eyes glowing with arcane magic that belied his captivity; it was extremely rare for a proper mage to be held against his or her will so easily. "You aren't going to arrest me for illegal immigration?" he asked, an obvious reference to the trick that Naira had mentioned at the city guard garrison.

"No, no. What the man Grimwald told you is a lie; your people are refugees. You have rights," she explained. He winced when she mentioned Grimwald, and she tried to make him feel a bit comfortable. "My name is Warden Hearthglen. I've been sent to break into this operation and set you all free. But I need to know as much as you can tell me."

Eyebrows arched in exhausted relief, the arakkoa looked around nervously as if they weren't alone. "I'm...Pika," he sighed. "And I'm afraid that I don't know much; they only brought me here three days ago to operate this machine." He pointed toward the lathe, and quicky shrank away from Sharimara. "It wasn't my fault; they waited for me to fall asleep and put this collar on me. I can operate the machine, but I can't cast my illusions; I have no means of escape and they..." His voice cracked for a moment, and it was very audible due to the arcane echo of his words. "...they have my sister."

Sharimara frowned in sympathy, and put her arm on the man's shoulder. He flinched away from her at first, but soon realized that she wasn't going to hit him. "The other person I spoke to said the same thing about her family; a draenei named Naira," she replied.

Pika's beak pointed toward the floor and he looked even sadder. "I heard about her...from her cousin. They shot him a few days ago when he tried to escape."

Sharimara's stomach turned, and she felt even less morally conflicted over the slaughter she'd just inflicted on six strangers. "I'm so sorry you had to see that," she said, "but I will make sure that your sister doesn't suffer the same fate. But is there anything you can tell me about Grimwald's operation? Anything at all?"

Pika opened and closed his eyes a few time, obviously fighting off tears. "Well...they're at a lacquerware factory a few streets north of here. You'll know it because they apparently have a few people hanging around the front gate pretending to be homeless. And...my sister is Harsona. She's there, because she doesn't know how to operate magic powered machinery like my. They spoke of...of shipping her away." Tears began to fall from the bird man's aged face.

"If she's here, then she isn't going anywhere. This ends tonight." She tried to pat him on the shoulder again, but to no avail.

"She came to this planet because of me," Pika mumbled while wiping his eyes on a fold in his tattered robes. "Because of me. I heard about the jobs on Azeroth and convinced her to come; she didn't want to at first, but we couldn't stay in Outland anymore. They put this collar on me, and I couldn't save her...I told our father on his deathbed..." Devastated beyond words, Pika buried his face in his hands, shedding soundless tears as Sharimara ushered him out of the kitchen.

"You can't blame yourself for what you didn't know; the world couldn't function if we all lived like that," she whispered to him. "Come on now, how can we open that collar?"

Face still in hands, Pika followed along as they stepped over the pile of corpses. "I'm sure the key is on one of them here; I saw it. But how..." He paused and looked up, finally understanding her line of thinking. "You want me to cast an illusion on myself."

Sharimara nodded. "I was sent in without backup to avoid drawing attention; there's nobody here to escort you out, and it isn't safe for you to stay at this place. Go six streets south and eighteen streets west; once you reach a tavern called the Winking Makrura, it's a straight half hour walk to the city guard headquarters."

Pika had already found the odd looking key, but he didn't look happy. "There's...one piece of information I left out. That complicates the situation a bit," he sniffled.

"What's that?"

"Yesterday evening a visitor came buy to discuss business with these...devils," Pika huffed while kicking the dead male orc. "I couldn't see him clearly, but through the doorway, I saw the back of his shoulder...he was wearing a Menethil Harbor tabard. One of the city's guards is working with these people."

Sharimara stopped in front of the door and looked down at him for a moment. He looked back up hopefully, as if expecting a grand solution to what was clearly a bigger problem than she'd realized. Corrupt cops were everywhere; it was pure luck that she hadn't been required to work with one until then.

"That's...troubling, to say the least," she replied cautiously. "Can you turn invisible?"

"Indefinitely," Pika replied, though no pride shone through in the bereaved brother's voice. "It's how I plan to follow your directions."

"If you recognize the voice of the corrupt guard once you reach the garrison, then hide until I return."

The collar removed, Pika was free but remained visible as they both waited at the door. "But...if you don't return? What will happen to Harsona?" he asked with an innocence that belied his age.

Sharimara fell silent for a few moments that stretched on far too long. Success across many decades had lent her a confidence in her own ability to improvise, but she couldn't deny the sense of dread she felt at having to deal with a city guard in the mafia's pocket.

Well...deny it to herself, that is. To an exasperated victim, she had no difficulty at all. "I will return," she told him, feeling no ethical qualms over the false confidence. "You have to believe that."

Pika's eyebrows furrowed in resignation. He might not have believed her, but he appeared to be trying to think positively. It was heartening to see considering how guilty he felt over his sister's captivity. And even though Sharimara's own confidence had wavered somewhat, that belief that things would turn out alright in the end would have to be her lifeline until she could figure out who was the traitor in their midst.


	4. Chapter 4

By the time Sharimara opened the door of the unlit crackhouse, Pika had already turned himself invisible. The arakkoa were know for their illusion magic, and she had no doubt that he'd be able to keep himself concealed as long as necessary if he felt uneasy enough at the city guard garrison. Though she could detect every step he took as they walked out into the street, she doubted an untrained eye could.

And that included the four new pairs of eyes that fell upon her the moment she stepped into the sidewalk.

"Damnit, Shari," she cursed herself for her own lapse in caution as she found four thugs staring her down and the green lantern from down the street extinguished.

Wearing leather armor and wielding blunt weapons that would stun but not kill, the five were obviously employed by Grimwald and had been at the drug den across the street. Leave it to the Menethil Harbor mafia to optimize space by running their drug brewery and distribution center right down the street from their people smuggling operation.

Though none of them had bows or guns, this group appeared much more menacing than the ones inside the dilapidated house behind her. An orc woman, a human woman, a human man, and a mixed man that resembled Dirk's ethnicity stood before her, their matching black leather jerkins creaking as they formed a half diamond around her. Stepping forward as the spokeswoman for the group, the orc gripped what looked like a canister in her hand.

"Care to explain what you're doing here, stranger?" the green skinned woman asked bluntly while staring down the armor clad giantess without fear.

Sharimara measured the situation. In a fair fight, she'd kill all four of them even out in the open; it would simply take longer than the one sided slaughter she'd undertaken inside the crackhouse. Her main concern, however, was the canister in the ringleader's hand. Unintimidated, the three other thugs closed in on her, as if they weren't worried about her stature or her weapon at all.

"Do you?" Sharimara asked back defiantly. If this was an ambush, then there was no reason to drag things out.

Calculations went off inside her head, but were cut short when the orc reacted to the defiance by lobbing the canister straight at Sharimara's head. Only at the very last second did she blink to the spot right behind the ringleader's back, earning shocked gasps from all four thugs.

Sharimara brought her glaive down, but in a sign of prowess that was worrying, the orc spun around and dodged the swing. Delayed by only a few seconds, she felt her irritation growing as the footsteps approached and met the orc's counterstrike by stabbing the green woman in the throat with one end of her glaive. Rather than count it as a victory, Sharimara cursed and ignored the orc who was choking on her own blood as she leapt away from the three people rushing to attack her from behind. These odds were not what she liked; although she wore heavy armor just in case of a worst case scenario, she didn't every enjoy being in a situation where she needed it. Truth be told, her ability to roll with the punches wasn't as tested as her ability to throw them.

Turning around to check the positions of her opponents one last time, she gasped as the human male swung his mace upward toward the unprotected lower half of her face. At the very last second, she blinked backward and ended up beind them, but only after she actually felt the rush of air pushed forward by the steel weapon tickling her lower lip.

"What the...!?" the man growled as he fell forward, tumbling to the cobblestone street as he overshot into the air.

The hum of Sharimara's blink spell rang out behind the human woman and the halfbreed man, and both of them swung backward at her instinctively. They both missed, and she brought both ends of her fel glaive on their necks. Before the human male could even leap to his feet, Sharimara had stomped in the small of his back with her armored boot.

"Argh!" he grunted as the skin of his lower back was cut. Despite being made of metal, her boots had separate parts for her big toe and her four smaller ones, and the big toe was encased in a metal talon that she's found came in handy on more than one occasion.

Digging the metal talon further into his back, she smiled when the man wisely shut up. "You'll live in a prison cell or you'll die right here, tonight; make your choice," she practically hissed at him, leaning her weight onto her foot for effect.

The man grit his teeth in defiance, but made no move to spit or curse. "Prison cell," he grunted again while squirming forward enough such that his back wasn't being cut any deeper.

"Very good. I'm going to shadowmeld; you're going to get me access to Grimwald's factory where he hides the refugees."

Not even waiting for him to resist, Sharimara grabbed the man by the collar of his jacket and lifted him to his feet, kicking his mace into a row of wilted bushes across the street in the process. They were so close that she didn't even bother to hide the bodies of his friends or to give the gurgling orc woman on the ground a second look; experience had told her that in an operation that valued secrecy, there wouldn't be more than the total of nine people she'd already killed patrolling one corner of one neighborhood. By the time their bodies would be found, she'd be at Grimwald's doorstep already.

"March!" she snarked at the man, reaching over his shoulder to point in the direction of the factory just as she shadowmelded, doing her best to make the point that she wasn't bluffing. She retained her grip on his jacket collar and drove him forward; to any onlookers, he would only look like a stiff and awkward man walking by himself.

Brusquely and awkwardly, she shoved him forward as he led her through the dark, unlit streets. It was no wonder that Greyscale was an abandoned quarter of Menethil Harbor; half of all the buildings looked abandoned and boarded up, and those that were occupied were closed off by iron doors with padlocks and barred windows. Not even any more homeless lookouts were to be found that close to the location. And Sharimara knew they were close when, after rounding a corner, she could see the high brick wall of an industrial property and the aluminum roof of the factory beyond. A rusted old smokestack punctuated the factory's skyline, as if to signal that the neighborhood had been entirely forgotten. As the man continued to walk stiffly, two dwarven ruffians on either side of a rusted iron gate came into view. Beyond the bars of the gate, the front wall of the factory lied perhaps a mere ten yards back.

The two ruffians both wore their short swords openly, as if to make the point that they were the law in that part of town. When they stopped their conversation short to look at the human, Sharimara knew he must have been winking or otherwise signaling to them that something was amiss.

The red bearded dwarf cocked a bushy eyebrow. "Hobart, what're on about?" the short man asked. His companion, however, seemed a little more alert and began to inch toward a bell hanging near one side of the gate.

In a flash, Sharimara flung her glaive at the man, breaking her shadowmeld but splitting his skull down the middle. When the human named Hobart tried to run, she shoved him headfirst into a wall, giving him another jolt as the surviving dwarf charged. They were a difficult people for her to fight, much more difficult than a large being such as a giant or a tauren; dwarves struck low, and for someone her height it was a nightmare to deal with.

Leaping backward and giving up more ground than she would have preferred, she forced the stout man to chase her in a wide arc at the T junction ending at the iron gate. At the rate the man was swinging, she didn't want to test out her armor that night by trying to disarm him and blinking again would drain too much of her mana reserves. Eventually she led him back toward his dead friend, and her speed allowed her to snatch her glaive up again and strike out in time to cut his hand off; refusing to scream due to his stubborn pride, the man died anonymously as her second swing came down.

To the other side of the street, Hobart groaned until Sharimara yanked him to his feet again and allowed him to stumble into the wall. "Let's try this one more time," she growled before grabbing him by the collar and the seat of his pants, and then launching him over the wall.

"Help!" he gasped just a little too quietly to alert anyone as he soared up into the air and then came crashing onto the ground.

Sharimara landed on top of him a second later, having jumped the wall immediately thereafter. Her heart was pounding from the nonstop action she'd engaged in ever since she'd knocked out that lout Mervin, and she didn't want to drag out this entire bust any longer than it needed to be.

"Inside," she hissed while shadowmelding again. "Get me inside and I'll just leave you with a splitting headache for a few days."

Grumbling under his breath, Hobart stumbled forward until he skipped the main double doors of the factory floor and reached a smaller side door. It was made of a similarly rusted iron, and there was no handle or knob for access from the outside. He knocked and tried to step back from the peephole, but found himself boxed in when his back bumped into Sharimara.

Only a second later and two red eyes plus the pointy green nose of a goblin peered out, inspecting the man up and down. This would have to be played carefully; there's no way Sharimara could break down an iron door without alerting the entire building. "Scram, Hobart. You're supposed to be guarding the binge party."

"I just need to check on something," Hobart replied urgently. "Something the boss needs to see. It's outside."

Though he was obviously trying to entrap her, Sharimara let it slide for the time being. The goblin eyed the human suspiciously for a moment, and she found her heart pounding even harder. After what felt like ages, the goblin tutted his tongue against the roof of his mouth.

"You owe me those dirty magazines you keep in your foot locker, later," he mumbled before closing the peephole. Keys jingled and a second later, the iron door opened, revealing the goblin wearing the same jacket as Hobart and a chain link fence closing off main factory floor from what appeared to be an access hallway.

Flinging Hobart to the side, Sharimara stabbed forward and cut the goblin in half just as it began to scream. "Occupational hazard," she muttered when she pulled the blade out. Hobart tried to open his mouth as well, but a swift stomp to his face knocked him out cold. She left him alive, though it wouldn't have affected her much had she changed that; many long decades of dealing with such lowlifes had numbed her, and the killing had become so easy ethically speaking that she no longer even needed to rationalize it to herself.

After stuffing both the living and the dead body in a garbage dumpster beside the building, she entered the factory and closed the door behind her. It was poorly lit, ironically for the sake of keeping their operation hidden; shadowmelding was even easier and as she crept through the hallway rimmed by the outer factory wall on one side and the interior chain link fence on the other, she began to observe.

Old crates had been used as walls, and while there were four sentries patrolling on the catwalk above, none could be found on the ground floor. Taking her time to patrol it on her own, Sharimara found that what appeared to be the head office for the factory was almost directly above the door where she'd entered. Voices could be heard inside, and from her vantage point she could see a set of iron steps leading upward. What caught her eye, however, were the slave pens.

More chain link and chicken wire fences had been set up on the concrete factory floor, and in between rows of old crates, she could see what had to have been a few dozen refugees sleeping. Draenei, arakkoa, orcs, little mushroom people and a starved looking felhunter in chains punctuated the cold, drab surroundings. Families with children clung to each other as they slept in rags, clinging to each other for comfort more than warmth. The last cage, almost barely visible, contained a green strip that appeared to be the little arm of a goblin woman leaning against the cage.

The inside woman that Goldie had mentioned. "Shoita..." Sharimara murmured to herself as she gazed across the factory floor as well as the access hallway to the side in order to figure out how she could reach the informant - who was caged rather than posing as one of Grimwald's thugs - without being seen.

But before she could even move, a sound reached her ears, freezing her in place. She crouched low to the ground despite being alone and transparent, pricking her ears up at the voice in the office above her.

Muffled by the wooden walls of the walled in office, the voices sounded stressed, as if the people running the oppressive operation were worried about being caught. A male dwarf who sounded like he smoked more than he drank hacked deep in his throat; while Sharimara didn't know anything about Grimwald other than that he was the mafioso in charge, she got a strange feeling that it was him.

And sitting opposite him...almost directly above her head...

"I'm absolutely sure...she's possibly wandering very close to our location right now. I offered her Mervin as a sacrifice, but this one seems more serious than the detective we buried last week." The human breathed deeply, obviously troubled by his own words. "We need to secure the area fast. Stevenson might be on to us; taking out this warden and planting some of our brew on her might cause him to give up on trying for a while," Grimes whispered above.


	5. Chapter 5

Sharimara sneered at the sound of Grimes' voice above. She would have muttered something awful, but doing so might have given away her position. Instead, she slunk away, following the access hallway all the way to the opposite wall. Shoita would hopefully be able to offer some information regarding what had been going on exactly; she was locked up for a reason. Since Sharimara had been under the impression that the goblin had been sent to pose as a thug for hire, she felt it safe to assume that the woman had been ratted out and, for one reason or another, kept alive as some sort of potential bargaining chip.

The four sentries patrolling the catwalk above - all of them humans - looked positively hosted by their work. Though one of them carried a bow, the others only wielded the same maces that Hobart had, and wouldn't be a direct threat until they could run down one of the two sets of steps on either wall of the factory. Duly noted.

Creeping in a Z pattern against the wall, Sharimara found herself just a little bit too far to speak to Shoita comfortably. There was a gap in the chain link fence ringing the wall a little further down, and it only took her a few seconds to creep around it and follow it back to the point where Shoita's cage was. Inside next to her was a truly pitiful sight, and not in the sort of humorous way that Mervin's unconscious form had been.

Covered in dirt and wearing ragged trousers, a large pink being slept next to her. Ribs poked out of its sides and the boniest elbows, wrists and ankles that Sharimara had ever seen hung loosely on limp limbs. Only after a good deal of staring did she realize that the person was an ogre...a skinny ogre. It was almost as depressing to look at as the captive children in the other cages.

Wedging herself between the cage and a row of crates, Sharimara found a spot where she could sit just out of view of the four sentries above. Speaking wouldn't break her shadowmeld entirely, but it would weaken it somewhat; she wanted to be absolutely sure that nobody could see her as she tried to pump the fallen goblin for information. Breaking up a mafia ring was a rather routine mission, even if saving a few dozen destitute refugees wasn't; she didn't want to take any risks on what should have been a fast and easy case.

"Shoita," she whispered to the green informant, feeling her image ripple slightly as she spoke.

Apparently, the goblin had only been resting her eyes, as they snapped open rather quickly. That she didn't look startled when Sharimara intentionally weakened her own stealth was a good sign; this seemed like someone she could rely on. "Who sent you?" Shoita asked cautiously.

"Goldie; she and Stevenson brought me from the outside. Grimes is upstairs; he knows that I'm coming. And I'm guessing he threw you in here."

Loosening up immediately despite the fact that they didn't know each other, Shoita glanced at the emaciated ogre and then the catwalk above before speaking. "He's only recently been put on the operation's payroll, so nobody has a clue as of yet."

"By Grimwald?" Sharimara asked quietly. "He's the head of this mafia?"

Shoita snorted derisively. "Mafia? This isn't anything that big or sophisticated. Grimwald is just a washed up pimp running this as a one man show. Grimes isn't even getting paid that much. That's why everything has been under the radar; until now, they were only abducting handfuls of people at a time. They've never caged this many people before. Thirty eight, in all."

"I'm guessing they weren't prepared for this many," Sharimara murmured while peering around the opposite corner of stacked crates. All the other refugees were fast asleep.

"You got that right. The toilet got clogged within the first six hours of this shipment and Grimwald is running out of food. He's too paranoid to purchase large amounts of anything lest anybody take notice. Grimes was supposed to help with that."

"How did he get you thrown in here?"

"Grimes was up front with Grimwald about being a corrupt cop; I was exposed as being undercover. They beat the hell out of me something fierce and only kept me alive in case they needed a bargaining chip."

"I guessed."

"Right. Tomorrow morning they're supposed to put all of us on different cargo ships with pigs being sent across the globe, bought and sold like property. This is our last chance to save these people."

Sharimara hummed in affirmation. "The steps leading to the catwalk are too flimsy for me to sneak easily. I can kill the archer from here, but the others will alert Grimwald; and I'm guessing that he isn't alone."

For a few seconds, Shoita appeared to be counting people on her fingers. "You take out the archer, that leaves four thugs up top...Grimwald keeps a pistol in his desk...Sherlina, his mage, isn't a joke and Grimwald might cause trouble. Plus, they keep this poor girl Harsona up their as a servant for their meetings. We might lose her in the process."

"She's an arakkoa; I busted her brother out of a drug den a few streets away. Hmm...I'd rather not lose her, but what else can we do?"

Shoita pursed her lips and looked to be at a loss. "I'm not...well, I'm hurt, but if you get me a blade and I can probably handle the guys up top. The catwalk is narrow and they wouldn't be able to mob me; one on one, I'll slice their kneecaps off."

"And then you want me to break into the office at the same time?"

"Well, hey, you're the one that's confident you can pull this off."

Sharimara suppressed a grimace; there was a thin line between confidence and arrogance, and she supposed the situation was the goddess' way of reminding her that the latter would only lead to ruin. "But one thing...what about the refugees? Is there a chance of that mage taking any pot shots at them?"

"No, goodness gracious no; they're the 'merchandise.' It would be financial suicide. But I can spread the word." Turning away for a moment, Shoita rustled the ogre from his slumber. "Boog. Boog, wake up."

Tired eyes that reminded Sharimara of a less intelligent version of Chief Stevenson opened lazily, peering first at his cellmate and then at the transparent outline near her. The starving ogre almost cringed until Shoita laid a hand on his. "What-"

"Not too loud, Shoita whispered to him. "This woman is here to help us. Spread the word once you hear the guards shouting." The ogre looked at her with glassy eyes and blinked a few times, trying hard to comprehend the instructions. "When the guards shout...you tell the others that the dark woman is here to save you all. Okay?"

Looking back and forth between the two women, the confused ogre simply looked too hungry and overworked to ask questions. "Boog...will spread word. Blog want free."

"You will be, friend. I promise you that," Shoita told him before giving his hand one last squeeze. She turned back to Sharimara and noticed the talons on the index fingers of the warden's gauntlets. "Can you cut me out without making any noise?"

"Easily. But what will you fight with?"

Shoita ran one of her tiny fingers along the chicken wire. "The crate right behind you has expired wine bottles in it. Kick it open on your way out and I can carve those guys up from that...just not the archer."

Sharimara's heart began thumping in her chest again. That she could take out the people upstairs was a foregone conclusion in her mind. The only problem was that they had a potential hostage up there. As natural as killing had come to her, she still understood what exactly she was fighting for; her job was to ensure that the refugees got out alive. That, in her mind, was what justified the acts of violence she committed but not those commuted by people like Grimwald. And if she didn't have that thought to cling on to, then she truly had nothing left in life at all. Anxiety built up as she carefully cut a hole in Shoita's cage, and an internal conflict played out between the coldness in her heart developed by years of killing for a living and the importance she laid on preserving the lives of all the refugees.

Once a hole had been cut large enough for the goblin to fit through, the battered undercover guard looked up at her. "It's time, friend. Take out that archer like you said you would, kick that crate open and get up there."

Shutting her eyes for a moment, Sharimara tried and failed to control the rapid beating of her heart. There were always jitters right before a job that required her to take out multiple targets, but the thought of needing to restrain herself if Harsona was threatened was daunting. Sharimara was neither well spoken enough to negotiate a hostage's release nor delicate enough to take out Grimwald or Grimes were they to use the arakkoa as a shield the way she'd done with Hobart. Resigning herself to letting the loas toy with her fate as they willed, she nodded and stood up, creeping out of her corner to look up at the catwalk.

The archer was leaning against the railing, his back to the refugees. Two more sentries were toward the other end of the factory floor, while another was directly above Sharimara's position. All she had to do was take him out and blink up toward the factory office. She briefly considered blinking directly inside, but if she blinked right on top of Harsona, she'd crush the bird woman and defeat the whole purpose of approaching the situation delicately in the first place.

Ever so slowly, Sharimara pulled out her fel glaive. It had been her father's, and was common to the shadow hunter class like he had been, or like her oldest brother was. Of trollish origins, the blade was primitive despite its deadliness and wouldn't return to her like a boomerang or the moon glaives of her mother's people. Once inside the office, she'd have to improvise again. Tension mounted in the back of her neck.

Waiting would only make it worse. Holding her breath, she reared back, broke her shadowmeld and threw. The blade passed through the archer's torso entirely, and his three comrades all dove and hit the floor of the catwalk instinctively.

"What the hell is going on!" one of the three humans about yelled, waking up all thirty seven refugees other than Boog.

Sharimara kicked the corner of the wooden crate behind her, exposing the aged wine bottles inside and granting Shoita access to what she'd asked for. Before the conversation in the office above had even stopped, Sharimara had already blinked up to the catwalk, leaving behind Shoita's lightning fast footsteps and the sound of two breaking bottles as the sentries finally jumped to their feet and regained their senses.

"Boss, we have an intruder!" one of the sentries yelled, much to the fright of the rudely awoken refugees below.

Not wanting to waste a second, Sharimara kicked the door down and was met with one angry looking blood elven mage. The thin woman's hands crackled with arcane magic of a rather low level, but signaled potential power nonetheless. Other people would have been scared senseless; Sharimara wasn't.

Through the narrow view provided by the doorway, Sharimara couldn't see the rest of the musty, candlelit office but she could hear the screech of an arakkoa woman and the shout of a dwarven man. Shoita let out a battle cry as she barreled up the steps on the opposite end of the open factory, and an arcane blast sailed right toward the warden's face. Everything happened in half a second; there was no time to think.

Reaching forward, Sharimara waved away the blast. As her parents had taught her, it was better to focus on only a few abilities and master them than to learn a dozen substandard spells. Like three of her siblings, Sharimara had been blessed in Darnassus with spell immunity; it wasn't impenetrable, but against the spells of a novice employed by a people trafficker, it was sufficient. The blast fizzled out at the same time that someone gagged inside the office and someone hit the catwalk behind. The mage only had a few seconds to gape in shock before Sharimara leapt forward and kneed the smaller woman in the face hard, sending the blood elf against the wall of the office with enough force to splinter the wood.

Inside the office, Sharimara looked to see feathers and beard tumble to her left. More metal clashed behind her as the female arakkoa she assumed to be Harsona brought her hand down a second time, stabbing a black haired dwarf with a pair of scissors. Grimes was there in full armor and regalia, hitting Harsona in the back of the head with the hilt of his sword at short range. Leaving Grimwald to bleed out onto the linoleum floor, he raised his sword for a killing blow; pure spite burned in his eyes as he ignored Sharimara entirely, preferring to murder the rebellious slave rather than defend himself.

It proved to be his undoing. Tapping into her mana reserves once more, Sharimara blinked forward and absorbed the sword strike on her plate pauldron. The sword failed to cut into the moon blessed metal but it caused a deep dent, wedging a concave indentation straight into Sharimara's violet-blue hide. Searing pain like a papercut ate into her deltoid and she could have sworn she heard her shoulder pop. Harsona crawled away just as Grimes kicked Sharimara's leg out from under her and pushed her to the floor.

"You'll hang for this!" Grimes yelled as he planted his boot firmly onto her chestpiece. "Nobody can touch me!"

His bravado proved to be premature, as his sword had impeded itself into her armor so firmly that he fell backward when he yanked it out. His footing fell away from him and he braced himself against the wall of the cramped office, leaving himself prone long enough for Sharimara to reach up from her position on the floor and dig one of her talons into the opening between his boots and his greaves.

"Aaa arrrgggghh!" Grimes cried as he began to hop on one foot, casting his sword aside entirely.

Not wanting to give him another chance, Sharimara grabbed it and leapt up. The clash of his armor against hers when he'd kicked her leg out hadn't actually bruised her beneath the way he had when wielded the sword that was now in her hands. His armor was Alliance standard issue, but for low level footmen; she'd been paid to kill soldiers of all factions before except for those of Forsaken, whose lands were on lockdown after they'd shut out international trade. She knew where to hit and how hard, and when Sharimara rose to one knee and swung sideways, she used just enough force to open the greave of his uninjured leg like a can of tuna and slice off a piece of meat.

"Mongrel!" he growled at the biracial warden as he hit the floor, his only means of resistance once both of his legs were incapacitated.

Harsona crawled into a corner, sobbing into her leathery hands as Grimwald finally stopped moving. Before Sharimara could even decide what to do next, one of the sentries burst into the room and her heart sank. The man's leather pants were cut up and covered in ragged blood as if he'd been in a knife fight, but he was very much alive; Shoita was nowhere to be seen. There was no time to fear the worst, however, as the man had grabbed the archer's bow and knocked an arrow without asking any questions.

At the very last second, Sharimara tossed the sword forward and knocked the bow out of his hands. "Damnit!" he groaned as he fumbled, slapping frantically as he tried to grab the ranged weapon he'd ostensibly picked up from his comrade's corpse.

Leaping forward, Sharimara tackled him and pushed him against the wall next to the door, pummeling him until she thought he'd suffered nerve damage. Every blood vessel pumped as her adrenaline rush began to wear off, leaving her right shoulder aching and throbbing. She'd inherited at least half of her father's regeneration (and more of his berserker rage than she'd like to admit), and eventually she'd heal. It was a mere afterthought, for she had more to worry about at the moment.

Surveying the office, she found it not quite to her liking. Grimwald was dead and both the human sentry and the blood elven mage were so limp that they'd probably be permanently injured. Grimes, however, was still conscious. Considering how spiteful he was, she didn't put it behind him to crawl on the palms of his hands just to strangle the hysterical arakkoa woman if he could. Taking a few seconds to stomp on his head and leave him motionless, Sharimara felt confident to leave Harsona by herself.

"Pika is alive; he's waiting for you, but don't leave this office," Sharimara ordered the bird woman before leaving the office.

"Thank the sky!" Harsona sobbed into her forearm feathers. She did as she was told, and didn't move from the corner she'd crawled in to.

Outside the office, the refugees were in an uproar. Boog was leaning against one side of his cage in an attempt to calm them, though he was mostly blocked from view by a tower of crates and was experiencing difficult communicating to them clearly. Blood splattered the catwalk where the archer had been cut in half, and another sentry lied in a disgusting mess on the factory floor; Shoita must have shoved the man off. Next to the corpse of a third was the goblin woman herself; and as Sharimara had feared, her body was slumped in a heap against the railing. An arrow had pierced her all the way through, entering and exiting with her right lung in the middle.

Expending the last of of her mana to blink over, Sharimara knelt down and cradled the green woman's head in the crook of her arm. Shallow breaths punctuated Shoita's stillness, and her eyes already began to look hazy.

They gradually moved up to meet the warden's; an acceptance that was enviable could be seen, as if she'd already resigned herself to her fate. "Those thugs were...smarter than I thought. One of them grabbed...his buddy's bow...instead of rushing me." She turned and coughed, and there was blood on her chin. Nodding to Sharimara to keep the much larger woman quiet, she dispelled any hope the might have been. "I'm done. It tore my lung up bad, and too much blood filled the hole."

It wasn't the first time Sharimara had held a dying ally in her arms; she was fairly certain that it wouldn't be the last. But that knowledge didn't help to unravel the knot twisting in her stomach. "It's not fair," she whispered without thinking.

Auburn eyes glanced up to see glowing green. "You're too old for that, honey," Shoita chuckled and then coughed.

"I know," Sharimara replied while peering down. The refugees were all looking up at them; Boog in particular looked devastated. Not wanting the aluminum roof to be the last image Shoita saw, Sharimara lifted the goblin up in her arms like a child. "Harsona, come it's safe to come out now," she called out before leaping to the factory floor. A few of the refugees fell toward the backs of their cages when the pointy eared warden dropped down, but they all moved forward to see the former goblin thug who had turned out to be one of their saviors.

A teenage orc with a bruised face pushed up against the chain link cage first, trying to get a good look at the goblin. "I'm sorry, miss Shoita...I'm so sorry," the young man whimpered.

Even as the last bit of her soul flowed out of her, those auburn eyes lit up for a second. "Occupational hazard, kiddo," she wheezed. More of the refugees moved toward the edge of their cage, and the dying woman looked a little more alive for a few seconds. "It was an honor to be locked up in this hellhole with you all."

Already distressed and exhausted, most of the refugees simply nodded, pushed beyond the point of tears long ago. Only Boog cried quietly to himself, and Sharimara walked to his cage so he could stick a finger through the links and let Shoita grip it the way an infant might. It was an almost confusing sight; she wasn't young by her people's standards, and was as weathered as any other veteran city guard.

"Honor all of Boog," the starved ogre whined as the last bit of light left her eyes.

Harsona hobbled down the steps, wringing her hands nervously much like how her brother had done. She reached Sharimara just a minute or so too late, only able to gaze upon Shoita's body after the woman's passing. Huddling close to Sharimara as if she feared Grimwald would come back from the dead, Harsona remained silent and in shock as Sharimara stood back so the rest of the refugees could see her.

"My name is Warden Hearthglen; I was sent by the city guard to find you all," she announced in the formal voice she was more used to hearing from her second oldest sister. "The man who kidnapped you all is dead; the corrupt guard who was helping him is crippled, as is his mage. By the end of the night, you'll all be placed in proper safe houses, with your IDs returned and your rights as refugees recognized. Grimwald lied when he claimed you aren't allowed here."

Murmurs wafted through the air and confused looks were shown; even after they'd been treated so poorly, many of the refugees still didn't know that they'd been lied to or that they even had rights at all. A few were even uneasy as Sharimara released Shoita into the care of Boog and Harsona and began to cut the rest of them out of their cages. None of them, however, hesitated before stepping outside and into the relative freedom of the factory floor, huddling together both for warmth and to mourn the diminutive woman who'd given her life to save them.

By the time Sharimara had retrieved her glaive as well as Grimes, Sherlina and the thug who'd murdered Shoita, the knock came at the double doors of the factory, causing the refugees to huddle even more closely together.

Fortunately, it was Chief Stevenson who spoke from the other side. "Menethil Harbor city guard; open up!" he barked as the boots of a dozen more people scraped on the gravel outside.

Sharimara actually had to nudge away some of the refugees who clung to her for safety. "It's alright, Chief; all targets have been neutralized," she shouted back.

After a moment of pleasant shock, the head of the city's garrison pushed the doors open, actually wearing a full set of armor this time. A dozen more guards filed in behind him, and Goldie stood at his side. His eyes widened in awe at both the bloody mess left by the pitched indoor battle as well as the mass of tired, weary immigrants in the center of the factory floor. "Good work, Hearthglen! I didn't expect you to catch them so fa...oh no..."

Nervous at the sight of a guard after their experience with Grimes, but standing in front as a representative for the group, Boog offered Stevenson the goblin's body. The food deprived ogre's eyes teared up again as he released her. "Shoita help us," Boog whimpered before moving back into the crowd of thirty eight Outland refugees.

A number of the guards gazed upon Shoita's body sadly. Stevenson refused to let her go, but didn't leave immediately before stepping forward toward the survivors. "We have a bunkhouse prepared for your arrival; you are all welcome here," he told the group in a deceptively soft voice for a man who'd obviously lost so many peers and subordinates over the years; Sharimara recognized that weariness from firsthand experience. "And if you're willing to work, I can guarantee you'll find a place here in our city."

More murmurs broke out in the crowd. Despite their mental and emotional exhaustion, there was a tangible sense of relief at the mention of work and places to sleep, which was what they'd risked their lives for in jumping through an unstable new portal anyway.

As the guards moved forward to take a tally of the survivors and haul away Grimes, Sharimara nodded to the chief and walked toward Goldie at the back of the group. Her job finished, she became mostly unnoticed by the refugees and guards alike, a silent wanderer as she preferred to be. She slowed down when she neared Goldie, and the dwarf understood that she wanted to talk.

"Did Pika arrive alright?" Sharimara asked.

Goldie began to walk and the two women headed toward the courtyard outside. "Safe and sound; Dirk stayed back with him and Naira in case anyone tried to disable the golems," she replied. "Naira did not take the news of her cousin's loss well."

Pressing her lips into a thick frown, Sharimara refused to let another knot form in her stomach. This was all part of the job. "Goddess light the young man's path...his and Shoita's." She stared at the talons on her boots as the two of them stopped outside near the iron gate. "I didn't even get to tell Shoita my name before she passed."

Perfect teeth contrasted with the light wrinkles at the edge of Goldie's face. Dwarves were supposed to age almost as slowly as elves, and the woman had probably seen more than Stevenson in her time and maybe even Sharimara herself. "Occupational hazard," Goldie sighed, not realizing the sense of déjà vu. She looked at the fel glaive strapped to Sharimara's baldric and cocked an eyebrow. "Leaving already?"

Sharimara snorted. "No, not yet; don't worry. I'll at least stay to collect my pay and to see these people off while I rest a busted shoulder. Besides..." Looking down at the dwarf guard, she smiled for the first time since the encounter with the urchin not too far from there. Smiles had become such a rare occurrence for her that she actually counted how often they graced her lips, and she smiled even more in self deprecation at how cynical she'd become. "I can't leave without at least taking you and Dirk to the Winking Makrura."

Goldie grimaced. "You have an interesting idea of hospitality," she chortled. "But I'm glad we'll get to see you again."

"It's a date...tomorrow," Sharimara replied while taking a step toward the gate. Instead of jumping it, she simply pushed it open and walked at a normal pace. "I'll see you tomorrow evening."

Not wanting to drag the conversation out now that her work was done, Sharimara nodded and the dwarf woman understood, saying nothing but watching her as she walked down the unlit streets of Greyscale.

For the first time in many years, Sharimara had completed a job that actually gave her a sense of ethical fulfillment rather than a full coinpurse. Of course, it wouldn't last; there were still corrupted dragonkin who needed to be exterminated and plenty of kobold infestations that needed to be swept out. In a few days time she'd be flying out to the next highest bidder, undertaking her profession of ending people's lives for a living. But on that night in Menethil Harbor, at least, she gained that little reminder of why she had gotten into her line of work in the first place, and why she still hoped to be considered one of the good guys when she was finally called to account for her deeds at the end of her life.

Two stars shone down on her brightly in a constellation she hadn't really noticed before. As silly as it felt at her age, she hoped that somewhere, her parents were still watching over her over half a century after they'd passed, and found at least a small amount of pride in what she'd done that night.

**A/N: thanks so much for reading; I had oodles of fun writing this.**

**Up next for Sharimara is something...a little different. There's still action, but the overall subject matter is a little closer to her heart. It's the first time where we see another side of her...a side she has difficulty revealing to others for fear of getting hurt. For those interested, watch out in a week or so for the next story in the series: 'Connection,' starring Shari and...someone special.**


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